Friday, May 1, 2009

Pride

It's Pride Weekend in Northampton, an event that always makes me feel slightly guilty. I'm totally not homophobic, but...I did catch myself thinking that it would be nice, if only for the sake of simplicity, if girls would look like girls and boys would look like boys. And if everyone would just use their biologically assigned pronoun. It's clearly more important that people do what makes them happy, and I understand that it isn't a choice, and it's about what feels natural and right to the individual, I understand and support that. We recently voted on whether or not we should change our House Constitution to say "the resident" instead of "she" out of consideration for trans students. I almost didn't think it would pass (even though I voted for it. I don't see the harm in helping people feel included; that's actually what I'm all about.), a lot of girls pointed out that we chose to go to a women's college, and so we should get to revel in the feminine pronoun while we're here. So it isn't that I don't like equality and making people feel comfortable, I just don't like it when you have to play Guess The Gender. And I refuse to use "zhe", I just won't. A lot of the time it isn't any of my business, but I would still like to know. Someone, I can't remember who, told me that people are uncomfortable when they don't know a person's gender because they want to assess whether they could be a potential mate. I don't know about that, but there are situations that people get into where they don't want to be surprised by that kind of plot twist. I met a very nice person last night at the Mount Holyoake-Smith Rugby, Ice Hockey, Ultimate Frisbee party, but darned if I know what pronoun they prefer, and that's a little distracting. It doesn't matter to me, as I'm not looking to mate with anyone that attends MoHo, but I like knowing.Gay Pride aside, tomorrow is the Rugby Banquet. We have a circus theme, and I'm going as a human cannonball. (Scrum cap and swim goggles.) It should be fun, my Big Sib is going to reveal herself. The Smith ruggers are great, really, but they aren't like the Geneseo team. I wish my rookie class hand bonded more. I think I would have been a good social chair, I could have taken steps to bond next year's rookies.Sometimes, when I'm riding in the car with the Smith rugby team, the song "All These Things That I've Done" by the Killers comes on, and it makes me think of Geneseo. They would play it toward the end of the night at the IB, and all the ruggers would put their arms around each other in a circle and jump up and down. I remember one night in particular, I was between Chase and CWB (I was trying to include her, even though she wasn't on rugby. It was moderately successful, a male rugger pulled her out of the circle, but I got her back in.) and it was just a really fun night, but also the kind of night that I don't miss having. So, in the movie that is my life, I am in the car, with my new teammates, at my new school, and things are good, and this song comes on, and it flashes back to that night, and then you see me, and I'm happy, and the movie ends. And I live happily ever after.

1 comment:

Yeah, I know what you mean about the gender confusion, but you get used to it. One tip: as a rule, butch lesbians don't bind their chests. Also, if you're talking to someone who's really androgynous and their name doesn't clue you in, it's really all right to ask what pronoun they use. It seems scary but it's much better than guessing. As for reveling in the women's college atmosphere, sure, I get that, but I don't think it trumps the impulse to make all members of the community feel included. It's not worth alienating people whose life path will be difficult enough.